"801S?" called 9S. "Hellooo—?"

"He's not in here," 10H yelled back from inside the diagnostics bed. "Said he had something to do!"

"Of course he did…"

9S turned to leave, thought better of it, and strolled up to the side of the cot. As soon as 801S had confirmed that the final protocol and any associated triggers were completely erased, 10H became his priority. They'd marched out of the lunar server as soon as they were able. It would've been a lot easier to transfer her to a new body, and 10H hinted plenty of times that she would have preferred it that way, but 801S insisted on fixing her the hard way.

The factory was an immediate solution, not a long-term or infinite one. Parts were limited and none of them, as he'd soberly reminded them, could afford to throw away their bodies from now on.

"You're looking a lot better. You back to 100%?"

"It feels like it, but we won't know for sure until the full body scan is done." She stretched. He was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to do that in a diagnostic bed, but he wasn't about to tell an H-type how to behave with a repair device. "It's taking forever though."

"Nothing I can do about that, unfortunately. I'm gonna keep looking for 801S. Are you… coming to Earth too?"

"Of course! Where else am I supposed to go? Back to the moon server?" Her lips flattened and curled. "If I never see that place again I'll die happy."

9S glanced up at Pod 006 units hovering in silence at terminals and beside heavy but sleek machinery in the sterile, harshly lit room. There was no point in asking how the two of them were doing. Pod 006 was useful and for now, 10H was willing to deal with it on a co-custodian basis, even though she'd essentially quit the job already. If there was going to be reconciliation, it would have to come in its own time and he wasn't about to butt in and offer unsolicited advice to either of them.

He had never listened to any when he was in 10H's position.

On the more positive side, Pod 006's response to their bad standing was an insistence on being helpful. A hundred of the red units had accompanied them away from the moon server, and once inside the factory had made it their business to map the whole thing, unlock most of the dormant systems, assist in the restoration of full production power, and perform the necessary maintenance checks after a more than a year of disuse. It just couldn't make as much progress with 10H.

Part of it was Pod 006's personality. It had too much exposure to human records and no conversational exposure at all to anyone that wasn't itself or 10H, leaving it with a papery, cheap jauntiness to its syntax. The impression 9S got was that it genuinely wanted to be well-mannered, cheery, and comforting but it didn't really get how to pull that off without sounding fake. He didn't think it was lying when it said it was relieved that it didn't have to hurt 10H anymore. However, that didn't mean it understood that the 'water under the bridge' approach was more insulting than effective.

The main control terminal was empty. If 801S wasn't there and wasn't with 10H, there was only one other place to check.

9S rode a series of loading elevators up toward the top of the facility, where vents blowing brisk but above-freezing air kept frost from creeping over important fixtures. There were only two things up there: The exhaust outlets that piped fumes into the frigid crater above where the temperature ensured no smoke or vapor would rise and core storage. A frigid column of a room lined by the subtle, strobing glow of inert black boxes. Each sat alone in a sturdy transparent compartment, already nestled into the gyroscopic installation structures that would keep them safely suspended inside a YoRHa's body.

"Hey, Nines." 801S spun where he sat in the middle of the floor, his smile wide as he flapped a hand for 9S to come closer. "You're right on time, come look what I've been working on."

9S joined him, only to jump back from the glow in 801S' lap. "Is that an intact machine core?!"

"Sure is," 801S said, his chest puffing as he held it up between them.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? They lost a whole orbital base messing with those things!"

"I saw as much among your intel files. I didn't tamper with the sealing component of the core itself. I was actually testing whether or not we could operate without a self-destruct protocol, but it's built into the black box itself, so I ended up unsealing it."

9S wondered if that was how he sounded to other androids when he casually accomplished things that were sort of a big deal. He'd seen fully intact machine cores before, but only inside certain goliaths, like spinning and drilling types where they were always exposed—and that singing machine in the amusement park too. The core in 801S' hand was small by comparison. Not much bigger than the broken ones the reset Pascal had tried to sell him.

"So did it work?"

"Unfortunately, no. The black box also facilitates communication between the core's framework and our more standard AI components." He turned it over, peering into the golden glow emanating from the center like there was a secret inside if he looked hard enough. "I'd like to run some experiments, but now isn't really the time."

"Well, you tried at least."

"I did. And I succeeded in other areas on the way. When I was messing around in the main terminal I managed to find our design documents and remove the base imperative."

9S knew what those words meant, but his mind stuttered in the effort to process what 801S was saying. "The…base imperative?"

"Yeah. No point in us longing for humans at this stage, you know?"

"801S that's… Are you sure that was the right thing to do? Isn't messing with something like that kind of like playing god?"

801S searched 9S' face, his own scrunched as though 9S had said something puzzling. "What are you talking about? It's R&D. How's it any different from you unlocking your combat protocols?"

"I only did that for me. This is like if I went into the system and decided every scanner should operate like that."

"If it helped them survive, wouldn't you?"

9S frowned, averting his eyes to the surrounding walls and all the waiting black boxes. "I guess… I don't know, this just feels different. Like we're not qualified to make this decision."

801S rubbed at his neck and gave an apologetic laugh. "I get that. I promise I do. But there's really nobody who is qualified, Nines. Maybe Jackass, but I got the impression she's not the kind of person we should trust with our design documents."

"You don't know the half of it," 9S sighed.

It wasn't that he didn't trust 801S. He did. More than anyone. Because what 801S cared for most were the YoRHa units themselves. Living up on the Bunker for a year, as a scanner who was also a healer, he'd watched them all die and live and die again. He'd been forgotten over and over by people who treated him like a friend and he was either too young or naïve or just too oddly assembled to accept that. Whether it was because H-types had that instinct to preserve others, or the special resentment he harbored at being a pointless prototype for an unknown improvement that was never meant to make a real difference, he was more driven than anyone to personally ensure everybody they salvaged from the Ark was restored to an existence where futility was not built-in.

But still…

"If it helps," 801S offered. "I don't have the base imperative either."

"You took it out?"

"I was made without it." He shrugged and climbed to his feet. "Maybe since there were already YoRHa on the Bunker who were putting other things before humanity they wanted to observe my behavior. Doesn't matter why at this point. The point is we know I'm functioning fine, and it shouldn't have any side effects. I saw how much you struggled when you first met V. I thought it might be better if everyone didn't have to deal with that."

That was easy to understand. It was a miserable experience and he'd thought plenty of times that he'd have liked to rip out that annoying part of him. Still, now that it was possible, it felt like it was wrong to remove it. Like it was something that shouldn't be let go of.

Something important.

Something integral.

…What the hell am I thinking?!

9S' pressed his fingertips into his eyes. It had been a long time since he'd had a thought that wasn't his slink into his routines like that. Every objection he had, he banished on the spot. Some of them might have been his own genuine concerns about whether it was okay for a YoRHa to change themselves like that, but it was not worth the effort to separate one kind of thought from the other.

There were no humans left to long for. If they could live without it, let that redundant code die.

"Hey!" 9S jumped, his focus returning outside himself to find Shadow leaking up from the floor, her amorphous body closing around 801S' hand and the machine core in it.

"Shadow, no!" He sank his hands into her with no regard for what he was grabbing. While she was formless, it didn't really matter. "That's not food! You'll get sick or something! Spit it out!"

Shadow paused, her eyeless form considering him before she obeyed with a sulky huff and retreated back into 9S' shadow. All that was left in her wake was the core and 801S' glove, drenched in thick saliva.

"Ugh, gross…" He peeled it off gingerly and tossed the other glove while he was at it, leaving the machine core nestled wetly atop both. "Guess that can stay here and…dry off. Come on. I gotta check on 10H, but I think we're ready to go after that. Pod?"

An 006 unit popped up readily. Getting up there was a matter of waiting on the lifts, but pods made getting back down to the lower areas easy. For never having used one, 801S took to the experience of carelessly hopping from heights with a pod in hand as quick as anything else. Overall, he wasn't quite so intense anymore. Still focused, but there was a twinkle in his eye and he seemed to be having fun now that their lives were no longer actively in danger.

The challenges that might crop up between the concept and reality of bringing others back still nibbled at 9S, but 801S' confidence was contagious. Hopes he'd carried since the day he left the city sprouted and stretched tall toward a growing light inside of him.

"Looks good," 801S said warmly, meticulously scanning down the diagnostic read-outs displayed over 10H's head. "You're back in fully operational order."

She swung her legs energetically up and out over the edge of the bed. "Finally! Did you guys finish your prep? I want off this rock!"

801S blinked. "You do?"

10H glanced at 9S. "Did you not tell him?"

"I thought you two had already discussed it during your repairs!"

"I didn't repair her with the intention to put her to work."

9S rubbed at his forehead. That sounded like 801S alright. "Ok, so neither of you ever talked about this. 801S, she wants to go to Earth."

"And help!"

"And help. She is an H unit, it'll speed things up."

"I see... Well, not like I have any authority to tell you no. Let's head to the distribution terminal together then. We can catch you up on the way."

The factory's dissemination system had limits. Building bodies was a fully automated process that could be started or stopped with a button so long as the required materials were available. Transporting those bodies was where it got complicated. It was only supposed to do that when queried, and 'query' had a very narrow definition: A request for the release of pre-built backup bodies to the Bunker, or a release of raw materials to a terminal to facilitate transporter activity.

Enter 9S on 19 September 11945. His stubborn hacking had reached a lot farther into the sourcing systems than he understood at the time. The factory had plenty of rules and protocols, but it was also designed to be able to solve problems dynamically to avoid the need for anyone to ever come directly to the site. He'd effectively overwritten the coordinates it released back-up bodies to, so the distribution system read that one transporter in the ruins as updated Bunker coordinates. The result was the transport of a pre-built backup body as material for an already-active unit.

The snag was that 9S could only request a body for himself, as he'd later found out.

"Here." 801S sat on a pile of spare transport boxes in from of the terminal and tossed 9S three small translucent white cases with male connectors attached. Inside he could just make out a raw component of some kind.

"What's this?"

"An ID circuit," 10H murmured, feeling at the back of her neck for the corresponding port. "With a data bus hooked up. That makes sense. An internal partition wouldn't work for this since ID scans occur at the hardware level. And if we overwrote our own IDs, we'd risk the in-house system updating the ID log with incorrect information. Or locking up in response to the mismatch."

"Exactly. With that, you have an unassociated, freely overwritable secondary circuit. You should be able to make the transporter request whoever you need by just doing the same process as before."

"Why three?" 9S asked, feeling a little out of his depth with them swapping to H-type talk. "Isn't the point that 10H would use this?"

"We know for certain scanners can contact the ark. It's unclear whether H-types will be able to. Their access range is different, so she may not respond to the non-standard interface method. You may need to assist." He crossed his arms, bouncing one heel idly against the crate. "I was going to go down with you and ask Pod 006 to stay on this side as our operator while I handled it since I know I can do anything this process might require, but it's better this way. I'm the one who spent the most time getting to know this facility. I belong up here in case anything goes wrong."

"Doesn't that mean…" 9S hesitated. "Won't that make it a lot longer until you see 3S?"

"I'll see him when my work is done," 801S said with easy warmth. Like it was the most obvious thing. His fingers brushed across the star-studded visor wrapped around the bottom of his braid. "There'll be all the time in the world then."

All the time in the world...

Warmth bloomed in 9S' chest and his fingers patted rapidly at the side of his coat to help him mitigate a sudden surge of energy. Ghosts of limonene and citral danced on his tongue. He raced to the transport area, biting down his grin and pouring his focus into on keeping his mouth and his auxiliary vents shut. He was sure that if he said so much as 'ready', he would have exploded.

It faded as 801S started adjustments to send him down to Earth. The factory kept an ID log for matching body data to a given unit, but it wasn't designed to communicate personality, consciousness, or memory data. That was supposed to come from the Bunker servers or from already active unit data circulating through planetside networks. 801S had backed him up already in case anything went wrong, but he hoped it didn't come to that.

801S raised his fingers. Five. Then four. Three. Two. (9S took a shallow breath and rubbed itchy, sweatless palms against his coat.) One.

His external interfaces went offline one after the other. His consciousness followed soon after, flicking off with a half-second of what he imagined sleepiness was like. He relaxed into it. That was what transport always felt like. And sure enough, the next thing he knew, his aural system announced its return with the subtle initialization ping of a transporter in-process, the sharp hiss of pressurized pistons releasing, and the mechanical whir as the façade moved.

9S stepped out and stood in the mid-autumn sunlight.

And simply breathed.

Sea air tinged by oil slicks and old parts flowed through his ventilation system, chasing out phantoms of rust from the shores of Sector H. The street was empty. Piles of white tower debris lay where they'd all been pushed to the sidewalks, their sharp edges softened after eighteen months eroding under the wind and rain and constant sun. The cry of a bird echoed out from an empty window far above his head.

Overload teased at his processing cores, from an influx of memory rather than an influx of new information. He'd felt something similar on the occasions when he survived months of solitary, dangerous fieldwork and returned to the Bunker, but the two experiences couldn't truly be compared.

The Bunker never made him feel like he was on that silly rollercoaster. Plummeting into nostalgia, cresting dizzily into the possibility of making new memories, and careening through old ones full of pain, fear, joy, and contentment that all shared the backdrop of this scenery. The worst of his memories lie in the pit half a kilometer from where he stood and on a bridge that couldn't be seen from here. But the best ones surrounded him. Strewn around just waiting to be found like seeds scattered by a kind wind.

Up there he'd sat in a crumbled window and surveyed the newly opened sinkhole while 2B watched rays of light come and go through the ash-darkened clouds. Just around the corner of the building behind him, he'd picked dandelions and clover while poring over Anthurium's book. Deep in the forest a zone away, he'd tasted his first orange and heard for the first time that being YoRHa was something he could embrace.

It was raining somewhere far away. He could smell it on the gust that tousled his hair and clothes. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry, so he settled for a whisper to the hollow buildings and piles of shining clouds.

"I'm back…"

The transporter hissed behind him. A tiny gasp followed as 10H tumbled out and clumsily into 9S' grasp. The atmosphere must have seemed heavy to her, her calibrations unfamiliar after years tuned for operation in the minimal gravity of the moon. Her first steps on Earth were messy, but her wide eyes reflected the brilliance of the empty white ruins and the gray-blue sky.

9S looked up over her shoulder. A trio of red pods was floating along behind her. "Uhm…"

She followed his gaze and lost her moment to the lines that crept in under her eyes and around the corners of her mouth. "801S said I should take 006 for communication in case anything happened. It's fine. You know you left your cat demon thing behind?"

"Shadow?" He checked below him. His shadow was a shadow, not the solid-looking void he'd gotten used to. "Pod—"

A comms screen popped up right away. The focus was on 801S, but he was blotted out by a twitching black nose and a vexed red stare. Shadow gave a low series of grunting yowls, pawing at the screen with obvious frustration.

"Seems we neglected the transportability of demonic parties," 801S dead-panned from the background.

"I thought it might work since Shadow's not exactly organic…" 9S smiled apologetically. "Sorry, girl. Looks like I have to bring you back the long way once we're done. Behave up there, okay?"

Shadow's ears drooped. She made a sound he couldn't describe as anything other than an annoyed honk and sulked away.

"Both of you confirmed safely transported planet-side, then. You mentioned some groundwork with Jackass?"

"I need to get in touch with her and make sure that pod is still available, yeah. And I need to let Anemone know as much as possible about what we intend to do."

801S leaned back and flicked his braid back over his shoulder. "You sure we can trust her?"

"Anemone's never been the one I needed to worry about. It's everybody else that could be a problem. And after the last experiences this sector had with us, we have to let the camp know ahead of time that non-infected, normal YoRHa will be walking around. If we don't, that misunderstanding will get people killed."

"Can't say I don't appreciate the prudence. Just be careful okay? I'm on standby if you need support."

The screen cut off. 9S looked back up at the trio of red 006 pods. "Hey… You two are extra right? Pod systems usually come in one primary and two sub-units, but you're all primary units?"

"THAT IS CORRECT."

"Can I get two of you to head to the Forest Kingdom for me?"

"QUERY: TO RETRIEVE ADDITIONAL SCANNER UNITS 4S AND 11S?"

"Yeah. Pod, can you transfer the location data?"

"Go ahead and stay with them when you find them," 10H suggested. "As support. One of you hovering over me is more than enough."

10H got her legs together within a few minutes, but she remained on the skittish side as she accustomed to Earth. Fear of death was still a recent, imminent reality for her, so her reactions were comparable whether they were faced with the big but harmless stubby units or the huge and very much not harmless boars at nosing around near the alley 9S usually took. He gave them an even wider berth than she did. He'd have to make sure when the others were brought back they knew better than to get curious about the wildlife.

She relaxed more as they passed through the east side of the stream, pausing to stare down at schools of machine fish darting between her feet. He let her have a minute. There were no machines around to bother her. No one at the gate to the camp either. The only evidence they weren't entirely alone was a glint of a pair of goggles from a second-floor window just off the entance.

9S shielded his eyes. The android watching them looked familiar. "Wormwood?"

"…Long time no see, YoRHa." The voice wasn't as familiar as the face, but Wormwood had only ever spoken a few static-riddled words to him. He must've gotten his synthesizer fixed. "Who's your friend?"

"Unit 10H. A Healer type. Uh, living." Damn it. Wasn't he supposed to have gotten better at this? "We're here to see Anemone and Jackass."

"Anemone is in. Jackass is not."

"Can you send her a message? Tell her I need to access the ark." He paused and added: "And that I have some data she's going to be interested in."

Wormwood vanished with a nod, and 9S hopped up the ledge from the stream to the length of old gate and barbed wire outside the camp.

"Hey 9S?" 10H lingered at the bottom of the drop-off, swaying slightly with her fingers pressed to her temples. "You mind if I just…stay right here? I think information overload is setting in."

"That should be fine. I'm not gonna go far in, so just call me if you need me."

Passing through the shaded corridor of replicated office buildings that separated the stream and the greater city from the camp was like traveling back in time. It hadn't changed. Except for the garden. It had been cold, churned dirt the last time he looked at it. Grass and white pops of flowers had grown back over it since then, as though it had never been disturbed.

A lunar tear had bloomed there.

Dozens of eyes settled on him, as they always seemed to every time he entered the camp under unusual circumstances. But these weren't the mistrustful eyes from after the tower fell or the alternately frightened and shocked ones from that sham of a trial. These were surprised. He could hear their faint whispers on the breeze, a consistent refrain of 'isn't that…?' and 'look…' scattered by one piercing 'It's him!' and the subsequent sharp 'Shh!' that could have only been Alstroemeria and Bouvardia. 9S waved to them feebly, with a crooked smile just barely suppressed from reaching a grin.

It was nice. Being welcomed. As Anemone emerged from her tent and joined him by the flowers, he hoped that would extend to more than just him.

"Good to see you again, 9S."

Her voice melted him before he even registered the gently relieved smile on her face. That somber but generous presence reminded him easily why he felt he could trust her with what was about to happen. She wasn't perfect, but she had always tried to do the right thing. What else could he trust in, if not her?

"You too," he said and meant it more than ever before. "How've things been here?"

"Peaceful. The treaty is holding. Kicked up a bit of fuss from the Army side when you disappeared, but there wasn't much anybody could do about it. What brings you back?"

"It's… a long story."

She crossed her arms and dropped her weight comfortably onto one leg. "Something serious, then."

"Something good, I hope."

In the back of his mind, he'd hoped the debrief wasn't nearly as long as he imagined it to be, but the more he tried to explain succinctly, the more he realized she needed context. He didn't wait for her to ask for it. The same way she had not waited to ask before giving him the benefit of the doubt. Whatever he thought she might need to know, he told her. About the moon, and the night kingdom, and 10H and 801S and the YoRHa manufacturing site and their plans with the ark. About what the attack on the camp really was.

Only when it came to V did he hesitate.

Anemone listened with a grave, quiet face all the way through. When he paused to decide if he should tell her the rest, she wrapped her arms around herself and dropped her voice. "Will you answer me one thing, 9S?"

A chill ran down his back, but he kept himself standing straight. "I will."

"Jackass caught wind of a rumor coming from the mainland. That there was a human way out west. Do you know anything about that?"

"…I do." She stiffened, and his fingers clenched and wrung around his gloves. "I was kind of hoping I'd get to tell you before it reached this far. I'm sure if you're hearing rumors about it, the actual data will make it here before much longer. I'm sorry I didn't tell you but he didn't… I didn't think it would be a good idea. The treaty wasn't signed yet and everything was so volatile after the machine research report. And he never intended to stay. From the moment I met him, he's been trying to find his way back home. He doesn't belong in this world."

He wasn't sure Anemone heard him. Her eyes were turned inward, so far away she might never actually look at him or at anything again. He wished he could've plugged into her the way he had with 801S to reach a perfect understanding. Or just say, 'don't worry, he's not really human'. But he couldn't. That wasn't something he could decide for other androids, no matter how personally true it was to him. Anemone, just like everyone else who had seen or heard of the parts that were obviously non-human, had to come to her own conclusions about what V's existence meant for her.

"Did the mattress help?" He tilted his head, unsure he'd heard her correctly. "The mattress. Did it help?"

His throat tightened inexplicably. "…Yeah."

She took a few shaky breaths, letting her forehead drop into one hand. "Good. That's good."

That was the closest thing to forgiveness he'd probably get out of her, and he would take it. But he didn't want the conversation to end like this. His eyes dropped to the swaying flowers at their feet. "…Do you want us to revive A2?"

"I don't know. Never had the opportunity to have anyone back." A strand of hair slipped over her face as she brushed a tall stalk dotted with tiny white petals with the back of a finger. "Not like I can ask her if that's what she wants."

"I can."

For a second, barely visible within the shadow of her hood, her eyes flashed with more brilliance than he'd ever seen in them. "She's…in the ark?"

"Not everything," he confessed. "She's incomplete. But she remembered enough to hate the Commander. To recognize me. So, she would remember enough to not have forgotten you, Anemone. If you don't want to make that decision for her... I can ask."

She struggled to find words, and in the end, only gave him a silent nod.

He would try it. Later, though; much later. If he had to see A2 up and alive ahead of 2B, he'd probably come to hate her all over again, and he didn't want to. He wanted to keep feeling exactly what he did now, staring at the white flowers growing over the grave Anemone had made for her. A single saving ray of gratitude shining through a peaceful, indifferent twilight.

"9S?!"

10H's call was more nervous than anything, but he rushed back to the entrance where she was hiding behind the barbed wire barricade. Just in time for a truck to come to halt with a bouncing screech that made him wince. He'd recognize that jostling mechanical groan anywhere.

Pine waved calmly from the driver's seat. Jackass emerged from the truck's bed, planting a boot on the siding, and looming over them with a smile. "Hey, hackerman. Fancy seeing you back in town."

9S' nose scrunched. Iota was the one who started calling him by that name, and he really hoped it hadn't spread any further than her and Jackass since then. She was in an uncharacteristically cheery mood, which was rarely a good sign.

"Hey, Jackass. Glad you came so quick. You have what I need?"

"I might, I might, but first." She hopped down and held out her hand. "Heard you had something for me?"

Yep, that's the Jackass I remember.

He transferred her the data he'd found on the lunar server with no fuss. He didn't want anything to do with human data being paired with android manufacturing, but it was the exact kind of thing she and Pine were hoping he'd turn up, and it didn't hurt to stay on their good side.

She checked it right away, her eyes glittering almost greedily as she scanned down the readout. "It's in the spare room," she said distractedly.

By the time he came back with the mangled-up pod, Anemone was gone. So were Pine and the truck. Only Jackass was left, still perusing the data, right where she had been before. She probably wouldn't be going anywhere until she was done, so he nodded to 10H and hopped back into the shallow stream and he led her to the quarry where they would be working until there was no one left on the ark.

4S and 11S were already waiting there, with the two red 006 units floating over them.

"Nines!" 4S nearly knocked 9S off his feet and onto the cold white silicone.

"Woah, easy," 9S laughed. "Good to see you, too. Looks like my hiding spot worked out?"

"I think we've learned about the forest kingdom's ecosystem to write a comprehensive report on it," 11S griped, plucking the extra pod out of 9S' hands and dusting off additional equipment that Jackass had simply left there over the summer. "Why'd you put us with such a weirdo?"

"That machine was the only one I could think of who was friendly and so isolated that even the wide-area virus never affected him. All he ever does is take care of animals."

"I'd noticed." He twisted the dials until the right frequency keened in the back of 9S' head. Only when he was done did he give 10H his attention. "You the H-type? Never seen you before."

"You wouldn't have. I'm 10H. Previously stationed on the lunar server."

11S stammered, caught off guard by that answer. 4S bulldozed right through it. "Nice to meet you! I'm 4S, and this is 11S!"

10H leaned back a little. "Are you always this excited?"

"Only on days when I feel a big victory coming." He leaned back on a slab next to 11S and stretched out. "And I definitely feel like today is gonna be our day."

She smiled with surprising charm. "It'd be nice if that was true."

"His intuition's never wrong," said 9S, plugging a cable into the port at the back of his neck and handing 10H the other end. "I'll be your entry point. Pod, let 801S know we're heading in."

Pods 006 and 153 answered simultaneously. "AFFIRMATIVE."


The process took longer than 9S wanted.

4S and 11S insisted on going into the partition alone, sparing 9S the responsibility for fielding the natural reaction that would accompany them showing up in the ark again for the first time in half a year. So he stood by. Waiting with only the silent but curious presence of 10H for company, pacing and shifting his weight and wishing there was anything else he could do but wait.

N2 had to know he was there. She'd never shown much interest in this plan, but things might be different now that it was growing closer to fruition every minute. What power would he have to stop her if she decided to get in the way? None. At all. And maybe he was a better person than he'd been when all of this started because nothing made him sicker to his stomach than the idea of them being trapped in here so close yet so far while he could have 2B back regardless of N2's cooperation.

He'd nearly jumped out of his skin when 1S appeared on the pathway with 12H.

"You're really back," he murmured in a slightly shaking voice. Then, gathering himself, he became the same reliable elder he always was. "Do you need logistical support?"

"For now, me and 10H are just going to make sure this actually works. If you want to organize an exit strategy in the meantime, we can reconvene on that once we have the healers out and we know what the process is like."

"What's the status outside?"

"Peaceful. The treaty's still in effect."

He gave an acknowledging nod. There was more on his mind, but he held off any further questions and twitched his fingers forward. "12H, you're up."

"Understood!" She bounced forward, flapping her hands like she was trying to calm herself. Her eyes were bright and watery—9S really hoped she wasn't going to cry. "What do you need me to do?!"

"I have a secondary ID circuit plugged in. I'm going to write your unit address onto it, then… 10H, is there an optimal way you want to do this?"

A disembodied hum answered him. "It's really weird to explain in an environment this articulated. Everything around you is data, but the way it's being processed… Basically, your job is going to be to move 12H's full body of data through the cable into me. I have a partition open and ready for transfer. Just be aware the visualization really depends on you and her and don't halt the transfer even if it looks weird—I'll tell you if something's wrong, but this is an unusual enough process without you accidentally fragmenting her."

9S got the gist, recalling how he'd gotten the data out of Cruel Oath and Virtuous Contract. The final process with them had damaged him because he still had a consciousness outside the ark. It hadn't done any such thing to 2B's data. He didn't need that kind of deep-dive this time around anyway.

It just a simple transfer.

12H's resolution changed as soon as he touched her, down into blocks, just like the Commander. She talked nearly the whole time, mostly in reassurances to let him know she was alright. They cut off abruptly around 50% and 9S hesitated but didn't stop. At 100% she disappeared entirely.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. 1S called out. "10H, report."

10H responded by shushing him sharply. After that, she was quiet for so long 9S' stomach began to feel heavy. Had he messed it up?

"…Unit 12H's data download complete. Transfer was successful and I'm ready to disconnect when you are."

1S and 9S both let out sighs and shared a brief, nervous laugh before 9S disconnected.

Back on the outside, he was greeted with an immediate drilling pain in his head. "Shit… How long were we in there?"

"About two hours." 10H stood, wobbled so much she nearly fell on her face and promptly dropped back to her seat beside him on the carbon slab. "Ow… Is that you, 9S? It puts that much of a strain on your body?"

He pulled both the connector and the spare ID from the back of his neck. Across from him, 4S obligingly turned the pod signal off. "Thanks. It's fine, 10H. The disorientation passes pretty quick. I just can't do that back to back… How about you? Any side effects?"

She pulled the connector from the back of her neck and cautiously stood again. This time she didn't waver. "No, seems like I'm fine once I disconnect."

"That's for the best," said 11S. "If the signal doesn't have any side effects on you, it means the strain will be on the scanners rather than the healers."

"Can't say I see how that's better?"

"There's enough of us to rotate through. But there's only three H-types left including you."

10H stared blankly at 11S. Then at 4S and 9S, their confirmation causing her mouth to fall open. She shuffled on legs less steady than a moment ago toward the mouth of the tunnel. The first few drops of rain were falling. "...Let's go, 9S."

"Should we go with you?" asked 4S.

"No. I doubt 12H is going to be able to handle it if too many people are around. Stay here and rest up. I'll be going back in with whoever is up to it once we're back."

She marched off into the drizzle, and 9S trotted to keep up with her.

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTACT UNIT 801S?"

"Just send him a message that we're starting with 12H," 10H answered firmly.

The nervous, slightly overwhelmed newbie to Earth had been traded off for the exasperated custodian who had popped 801S right in the forehead with no qualms. Now that she had someone to heal, the machines and moose didn't matter.

A sense of unreality settled on 9S at the transporter. He'd done this before with one arm and a body wrecked by neglect, and it was a slow, brute force effort made difficult by his poor state. Doing it in near-perfect condition removed the effort from it. Left it impossibly simple. The way was already opened to him, and all he had to do was alter which path the transporter followed to read the ID circuit. It was too easy. The circuit hummed at the back of his neck. It couldn't be this easy.

The transporter opened, and his thought routines vacated.

A female type YoRHa stood in the compartment as perfect as a doll in a brand-new package. 10H and 9S caught her together as the machine spat her out, lowering her carefully to the ground. She had the same narrow face and red-brown hair as 12H, but she was no one—not yet. A body with nothing inside. 10H knelt, propping the body's head up on her thighs and entering a state similar to a hacking trance.

He sat with them, his part otherwise finished. Alone on the outside while 10H populated 12H's body with her memory, her personality, and all of her consciousness data. Everything that she was, poured into a shell that had never been her before.

It began to rain in earnest. The pattering of drops increasing and combining into that continual, isolating whisper that 9S had never liked. 10H came back to her body with a slight shiver and flicked an annoyed glance up at the sky. But she didn't move. She kept her hands to either side of 12H's head and watched the body start to twitch and react.

"Can you hear me, 12H?" 10H asked. "If your aural system is functional, please respond."

12H swallowed and bobbed her head.

"Motor control is good then. Can you access your visual field?"

12H took a deep, shuddering breath. Her auxiliary vents opened. Soon, so did her eyes. She looked at 10H. Past her, and past 9S, up at the sky. Her hand flexed open on the ground, fingers twitching irregularly as rain pooled in her palm. Her other hand closed into a tight fist that she pressing to forehead over her clenched eyes. She attempted to curl up, her body trembling as she hid her face in 10H's leg and—

And laughed.

"Disorientation and overload of sensory information," 10H diagnosed calmly.

"Should we move her?"

"No." She grabbed the other healer's hand and squeezed in regular, metronomic rhythm. The way 9S remembered 4S doing for him after he finally found 2B in the ark. "Focus on my hand, 12H. It'll pass, just focus on my hand."

12H nodded and continued to shudder with silent laughter as rain streamed down her face.

A year ago, not very far away, 9S had learned what it was to bury someone, the first of so many lessons V left him about grief. Here and now, with 12H flat on her back on the dirty asphalt, helplessly overwhelmed by the world around her and the cold autumn rain on her skin, he marveled at what it was to see someone be born.